Don't Ask Questions
by SJ Winterdragon
Summary: Hermione believes she is destined to be alone.. Her friends try to find her a perfect partner (PG13 Subject to change as story progresses)
1. Don't Ask Questions

Dear Reader. This is my second go at an SS/HG fan fic. I have no idea as yet how many Chapters it's going to suffer with - probably no more than 10 (all things going well) and hopefully posted weekly, or more regularly depending on how boring the rest of my life gets!  
  
I would really love to hear what you think and any ideas you have for what might happen in the rest of the story. And while I think about it - I know it looks fairly obvious that darling Severus is going to be her perfect match - CONSTANT VIGILANCE! Not everything is as simple as that.  
  
This story will have Remus Lupin back as the DADA Professor simply because he's great. Snape will not suffer from self pity, but he might inherit my liking for a good whisky (  
  
Also, as yet this story has no title - help?  
  
Chapter One: Don't Ask Questions That you Don't Want to Know the Answers to.  
  
"SNAPE!" bellowed Ron, spitting his pumpkin juice a record distance across the Gryffindor common room.  
  
Harry nodded, thoughtfully. He had expected this reaction and he knew this wasn't going to be easy.  
  
"Well think about it! - They are both intelligent, sarcastic, bookish and take their work FAR too seriously. Remove the grease and the frizz and it's a match made in heaven"  
  
Ron just stared at his best friend, unblinking and mouth set to catch flies. This is a joke - must be a joke.good ol' Harry. But when Ron started to laugh the look on his friends face told him he was deathly serious.  
  
"You're serious aren't you" it wasn't so much a question as a statement of his disbelief.  
  
. The game had started innocently enough, resulting in more than a few red faces, a couple of budding romances and an awful lot of sniggers.  
  
In the first week back after the summer holiday, Lavender Brown had produced a sort of 'Love Tarot' deck she had found in a Muggle shop. The idea being, (with a little non Muggle enchantment), that the card you chose would match with the card picked by your perfect match! Lavenders' set seemed to have an infinite variety. What was then meant to happen was, that with the aid of a book, you could calculate a perfect match. The new and improved set did away with the book and when a connection was made, the persons involved were showered with golden confetti.  
  
There wasn't much in the way of a surprise when Ginny Weasley had been showered in over-zealous golden hearts and flowers when a rather shy Harry Potter had chosen a card under the coercion of EVERYONE in Gryffindor tower. And even less surprise when he had been spied kissing said Miss Weasley up on the little used third floor by an annoyingly loud mouthed Peeves, who had appointed him self Cupids' messenger, zapping round the school informing everyone of the latest hot coupling.  
  
It hadn't been long before the game had spread through the school with students actually queuing up to have a go!  
  
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~  
  
It was a Thursday when it happened.  
  
The hall had been filled with the sounds of happy laughter and excessive giggling that morning as Hermione Granger made her way to breakfast. Lavender had been contemplating the possibility of charging for the cards use, Neville had been staring hopelessly at his remembrall and Harry and Ron had a look not seen since the departure of the legendary Weasley twins two years previously.  
  
Hermione sat herself and her coffee (white, half a teaspoon of sugar) apart from the rest of the seventh year, her nose, predictably enough, buried in a book.  
  
At 18 years old the Hermione had filled out nicely. She had curves where it was expected and carried her self with grace and elegance. Her eyes sparkled, her hips swayed and her mane of hair had grown long enough to pull out the worst of the curls. The know-it-all would have been subject to many admirers had it not been for the fact that every time she opened her mouth, something clever came out. She was still best friends with Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, and while they loved her and she loved them, it was purely platonic and it was as far as her relationship with boys went. She'd tried, but failed, to keep up the level of interest out side of books and learning that it took to have a relationship. It was no secret the Neville Longbottom had a crush like a ton of bricks on her, but every time he went to say something to her, it was like some one had cast petrificus totalus on him - even Hermione had grinned about it in private, whilst in public being the dutiful Head Girl, she had chastised her friends for making fun of him.  
  
As she turned a page of her book and reached out blindly for her cup of coffee, she was unaware of the eyes watching her.  
  
Hermione for her part had flatly refused to touch any of the cards, exclaiming that it was all ".silly and childish and pointless." - If any one had cared to put a call in to Doctor Freud, they would have been told that this was because she was scared. Not scared that her perfect match might be someone like, say - Crabbe or Goyle, but scared that she didn't HAVE a perfect match. Scared that the cards would tell her that there was no one with whom she was destined to be.  
  
Besides which, Hermione Granger didn't believe in destiny - what a load of rot.  
  
Unsurprisingly, Headmaster Dumbledore had been tickled by the new game that had been bought in to the castle. As much as he loved Valentines, he always thought it a shame that it only lasted one day. So the enjoyment he now saw lifted his spirits. With the end of summer coming it was good to have so much warmth radiating from within the castle. However, not all the teachers took this wistful point of view.  
  
Snape - for example.  
  
He had not only forbidden the cards or any talk of them in his dungeon classroom, he had even gone as far as to ban them from the Slytherin common room - which only managed to bring out the worst (or best) in Slytherin sneakiness.  
  
Two pairs of eyes watched closely as Hermione reached out for her coffee.  
  
In the next second there came a 'CRACK,' a gasp, a shriek and a smash.  
  
SOMEBODY (innocent faces abound surrounded her) had placed one of those bloody cards on her cup. The resulting 'CRACK' had been the magic taking hold and registering one 'Miss. Hermione Granger' ready to be matched up. The shriek and smash happened simultaneously as she hurled her cup at her classmates - no one in particular but the whole lot of them.  
  
"JUST LEAVE ME THE BLOODY WELL ALONE!" And with that she stalked out of the room. You could almost see the smoke pouring from her ears.  
  
Ashen faced, everyone turned to look at Harry and Ron  
  
"Bugger it! I think we might have gone too far this time"  
  
Ron sat agog. "What's got her so highly strung?"  
  
After a few moments - about the length of time it took for everyone to catch on to what had happened, all eyes were turned to Lavender, who had the pack of cards held in her right hand and a slice of toast dripping with marmalade in the other. Nearly everyone had had a go by now. Hermione's perfect match ought to now be drenched in hearts and flowers - but there was nothing. Not a thing.  
  
Horror dawned on Harry as he let out a low mournful moan that Professor Lupin at full moon would have been proud of.  
  
"'Mione doesn't think she HAS a perfect partner!!" Ron snorted  
  
"Looks like she was right" The look the rest of the Gryffindors gave him would have killed a basilisk.  
  
"Poor Hermione!" this from Lavender, who held out her pack of cards with a look of disgust on her face  
  
A nervous and obviously dejected Neville asked, "Well, who HASN'T had a go? 


	2. The Great Gryffindor Plan

Chapter Two: The Great Gryffindor Plan.  
  
A note: I have been far too engrossed in caring for yet another plot bunny that is proving to be of a particularly demanding disposition. As a consequence I'd pushed this poor little mite away. It snivelled to itself for a few days, hiding under my bed until my patience with my troublesome creation finally broke. With a fresh mind I'm ready to have another stab at this one. Thank you to the few folks who had nice things to say about chapter one. Here is chapter two!  
  
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~  
  
"Almost every one has!" exclaimed Lavender who looked decidedly pale.  
  
"Almost?" questioned Parvati  
  
"Well I wasn't exactly keeping a record you know -it's just a silly game!"  
  
But suddenly it wasn't so silly any more.  
  
"I should go talk to her." This from Harry, who took the last swig from his coffee like a man about to walk the last long mile. "You", he pointed at Ron, then looked fleetingly over everyone else "Come up with something -Anything!"  
  
As he turned to leave the great hall he caught the sharp questioning look of professor McGonagall, but he just shrugged at her, and walked out through the massive doors and headed toward the Gryffindor tower.  
  
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~  
  
"What we need is a plan."  
  
The small group of Gryffindor seventh years crowded round the bottom end of their house table - furthest away from the Head table and the Teachers. In front of them, surrounded by cups of tea, coffee and pumpkin juice and the odd crumb of toast, lay a scrap of parchment that was quickly filling up with names of friends, enemies, housemates, peers, rivals and even, the gods forbid, Slytherin.  
  
"Hannah Abbot!" added Ron. " - Well you never know" he said with a pointed look, and a rather perverted twist on his lips.  
  
"In that case Blaise Zabini!" interjected Seamus with a glint in his eye as he ventured a quick glance over at the Slytherin table.  
  
A unanimous sound of exasperation from the girls of the group bought the boys minds back in to focus, though somewhat begrudgingly.  
  
"I really do not think Hermione is that way inclined, " pointed out Parvati, who had shared a dorm with Hermione since the first year.  
  
"If we are going to do this properly" emphasized Ron "we need to get everyone to do it -and besides, who would have thought Cho would end up with Susan?" he quirked his eyebrows up and the group turned to watch the two girls walking hand in hand out of the hall. - " Especially after the grief she put Harry through in the 5th year."  
  
"Alright!" snapped Lavender, in a shrill little voice that sounded distinctly like Harry's Aunt Petunia. "Point taken." And she added the two girls names to the list.  
  
Over the next twenty minutes, with an increasing amount of help from the younger Gryffindor's (including Ginny Weasley) and even a few Hufflepuffs who had been sitting close enough to overhear what had gone on, the list was completed.  
  
"Every student from the first year to the current seventh year!" announced Lavender, what a smug expression.  
  
"He -"  
  
"Or she!" pointed out Ron, Seamus, Neville and Ernie.  
  
"Has to be here." She said jabbing her finger at the parchment and glowering at the boys disapprovingly  
  
"And anyway.. What would she see in a first year?" The boys were obviously still miffed about the resistance they had met over Hermione's love interest being another female.  
  
"Age has nothing to do with true love." put in one of the Hufflepuffs, obviously a victim of too many romance novels.  
  
Ignoring them all, Lavender, who was actually enjoying taking control for once, carried on  
  
"What we should do now is split the list up so we each have a portion to work with, that way we can cover more ground in a shorter space of time." She waved her wand over the list and it split up in to four separate parchments. " Dean and Parvati - you take A to F, Seamus and Neville you take G to L, Ron, you and Harry will take M to S and Ginny and I will take T to Z."  
  
"But that means we get Malfoy!" Ron spat out the last word like a mouthful of Marmite, but with twice the amount of repulsion.  
  
The others all took a moment to look over their lists  
  
"We get Crabbe!" Parvati winced dramatically.  
  
"And I've got Goyle" said a green looking Neville.  
  
Lavender harrumphed at them "It's nearly time for Class, we have double Potions first thing, so I suggest we all get to work on this AFTER class. Snape will boil us alive if he catches wind of this."  
  
"I hope Harry's had some luck with Hermione," said Ginny, who had a free period first off and was helping her self to a spoon full of honey to put on her porridge. "I'll get to work on our part of the list." she said, tucking the parchment in to her robes.  
  
As the Seventh year trudged out of the hall Dean turned to Lavender and said "You know, if anything ever happens to Hermione I volunteer YOU to take over as the bossy one."  
  
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~  
  
Harry left the great hall with a terrible feeling in the pit of his stomach. If he was absolutely honest with him self, he couldn't actually think of anyone who could be considered Hermione's perfect match. It wasn't that she was ugly -far from it! And it wasn't as if she was dull. He and Ron had found her to be great fun to be around and very useful on their yearly escapades. It was just that anyone in Hermione's life felt that they were second best to her books.  
  
Upon entering the wizarding world, the Muggle born students soon learnt that they were swimming around in a very limited gene pool  
  
All one had too do was look at the likes of Draco Malfoy and his cronies to realise this!  
  
Harry thought that it would not be very difficult to meet every Witch and Wizard in existence, so the likelihood of Hermione's future spouse being resident at Hogwarts castle was nearing ninety-nine percent certain.  
  
At the beginning of the year Hermione had dated one of the Ravenclaw prefects, but as smart and good looking as he was, he just didn't meet Hermione's expectations of a lover, and the two parted ways on good terms. Harry knew things were different for Girls. He knew his friend would need some one as addicted to learning as her self, but also some one of strong enough character and good humour to help bring her out of her self. She needed a meeting of minds. Not a clash of hormones.  
  
As Harry reached the door to the common room he braced him self for tears, anger, maybe even violence! That is if Hermione's display in the Great Hall was anything to go by. Cautiously he swung open the portrait and stepped in to the common room.  
  
A/N I've read a fair few arguments regarding the gender of one Blaise Zabini. In the story, said character is Female, just in case you were wondering about Mr. Finnigan's roving eye. Reviews please? I'm quite happy to come up with endless excuses for why things are written the way they are : ) 


	3. What Could Be and What Is

A/N Well, at about 2:45 yesterday afternoon my story suffered its first identity crisis. I took my dog for a long walk, then spent half an hour talking to a particularly uncommunicative horse. Now I'm back on track. Not so much Dr. Dolittle as Dr. Dolally. However with the regaining of my mind came the realisation that if do what I want to do with this story 10 chapters is going to be a squeeze. So either its going to be more like 15 -20 OR each chapter is going to be longer which means further apart between posts. What do you reckon? Long and less frequent or same but over a long period of time?  
  
Also, thank you to the folk who posted reviews -especially Eileen, who I think spends far too much time looking at dots and dashes on computer screens. * Grin *  
  
Chapter Three: What Could Be and What Is.  
  
"I know and I'm sorry." were her first words, even before Harry had his second leg through the portrait entrance.  
  
"You are?" he asked stupidly, almost tripping over.  
  
Hermione sat at one of the window seats that looked out toward the lake and the Forbidden Forest beyond, lying dark and imposing, at the edge of the castle grounds.  
  
Harry joined her on the seat, leaning back against the sun-warmed granite of the window bay.  
  
"'Mione?" he could see she was trying hard not to cry- for which he was very grateful. "'Mione, I'm worried about you, we all are. Since we came back after summer, all you seem to do is bury your self in your school work, or snap at us or give out detentions. I know this seems like a thick question but, what's wrong?"  
  
Hermione took several deep gulps of air to steady her self before she answered him. "Am I the only one who sees it?.. You lot are all off acting like children. Playing silly games, behaving like nothing's wrong.."  
  
She made no attempt to disguise the bitterness in her words. That shocked him. Leaning forward he took her hand and looked earnestly into her large brown eyes.  
  
She continued. "Any day now Voldemort could choose to attack, and unlike you lot, I just can't forget that." Pulling away from her friend she stood and started to pace the floor of the common room.  
  
"That day when He killed Cedric, it could have been you. It should have been you Harry! It still could be.." she wrapped her arms around her self as if she felt cold through to her bones. " We are so unprepared.. Even with The Order. They can't protect us all."  
  
Her chin quivered and her eyes were bright with her unshed tears. She bit down on her bottom lip. "It doesn't matter, if we have perfect partners" her voice barely a whisper now "we could all be dead before the year is out."  
  
Her head hung in misery as the tears finally took over and rolled down her cheeks. Harry stood to take his friend in his arms.  
  
"Please Hermione. Please don't cry." he soothed " I promise everything will be OK -I promise."  
  
She looked up in to his eyes. Dazzling green. She loved his eyes. But etched there within was all the hurt this Boy, this Young Man had suffered, and she suddenly felt ashamed.  
  
"Oh gods I'm sorry Harry - I can't begin to imagine how you hate this waiting, this not knowing.. And I can't let you promise me anything. I know you will defeat Voldemort. I know you will! But I'm not stupid enough to believe in happy endings."  
  
Harry looked for a long moment, searching his friends face, for a clue, an answer to what he could possibly say to make it better for her, even if for only a little while. He sighed deeply.  
  
"Your right." Harry moved to look out the window. "Voldemort may well at this very moment be in there," he gestured out towards the forest. "Any moment now thousands of Death Eaters could appear and attack Hogwarts. You and I may well die, as could everyone here. Our classmates, our Professors - McGonagall, Sprout, Lupin, even bloody Snape - even Dumbledore. It could all happen before the bell for first class stops ringing, it might happen next month, next year, next sodding decade! Look, the answer is I don't know 'Mione, and neither do you, and neither does Dumbledore"  
  
Harry sat down again on the deep red velvet cushion of the window seat and looked up at his friend. Her tears had dried, but he still saw confusion in her eyes. So he carried on.  
  
"Until I know for sure, I plan to behave like every other stupid love stuck eighteen year old. I want to have fun with my friends, I want to laugh, I want to joke, and I want to get on with my life. I want to pretend I'm NOT Harry Potter, Famous Harry Potter, potential saviour of Hogwarts and the rest of the Wizarding world! And I recommend that you, Hermione Granger do the same thing."  
  
Hermione was on the verge of a smile - he could see it as the corners of her lips twitched - so with a wry grin he added, "For all we know it could be Neville Bloody Longbottom who gets to kill Voldie with an exploding cauldron!" And with that they both fell into fits of cleansing laughter.  
  
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~  
  
"Twenty points each from Gryffindor for your tardiness - and .detention I think, Mr Potter, Miss Granger. See me after class, what's left of it."  
  
Harry and Hermione had pulled themselves together after their laughing fit only to discover they were going to be late. Very late, for Potions.  
  
They had grabbed their books and fled the Gryffindor common room, running full pelt towards the Dungeon classroom through the deserted corridors. They were going to get a detention; that was inevitable. When they entered the room, breathless and bent double with the effort of running, for a moment it looked like they might get away with just house points being taken off. But Snape had lifted an elegant eyebrow on top of his already threatening sneer. Apparently hell hadn't yet frozen over.  
  
Harry slipped into his seat next to Ron, and Hermione went to Neville, who was fiddling with a scrap of parchment. Snape continued his lecture on the different properties found in ingredients harvested on waning and waxing Luna cycles.  
  
As each working pair went to get the equipment for their experiments, Ron took the chance to find out what had happened when Harry had caught up with Hermione.  
  
"Well? How did it go then?" he had his back to Harry so as to make it look like he wasn't gossiping in class. He had no desire to join his friends in detention that night.  
  
"I think we got it straightened out," Harry hissed back over his shoulder as he lit a flame under each cauldron. "Did you lot come up with anything?"  
  
Ron turned to stand next to Harry lining up the ingredients in the order that they would have to be added to the potion.  
  
"Yeah" he fished an almost identical piece of parchment as the one Neville had hold of, out of his robes "Lavender reckons we are on a search and destroy mission.. Well not so much destroy but its definitely like a mind sweep." he wrinkled his nose up as he stabbed the blade of his knife in to an oozing black mass of Fluxweed.  
  
Harry rolled his eyes. Arthur Weasleys collection of Muggle wartime stories had a LOT to answer for.  
  
"Mine sweep. " he corrected.  
  
"Whatever" he dismissed with a shrug of his shoulders. "We're going to make sure EVERYONE has had a go, including Malfoy who, you will notice, is on OUR list."  
  
Suddenly dissecting the slimy black thing in front of him didn't seem all that bad. 


End file.
